


Sunrise

by Masu_Trout



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: Expansion Suit, Gen, Interspecies Friendship, Introspection, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 12:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6285136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma engages in a bit of breaking and entering and takes a moment to enjoy the view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> Emma may be one of my very favorite Pokemon characters. ♥_♥ I loved the X&Y post-game story, and I only wish it had been longer.

The city looked strange from beneath a mask. 

Emma had long ago memorized every one of Lumiose's winding streets and dead-end alleys. Essentia, though, was dealing with two different sets of senses; familiarity warred with GPS calculations, instinct with infrared sensors. The doubled perspective made it hard to concentrate, and often recently as Essentia she'd found herself slipping on the cobblestones or running down an alley she knew led nowhere.

It was... odd, and a bit frightening; a bit like most of her life, these days. But on mornings like these, with dew collecting on every building and the sun just barely peeking over the horizon, it was beautiful too.

Essentia huffed, the sound turning to static once processed through her suit's speakers, as she climbed along the jagged edge of the Prism Tower. With a final push, she clambered to the top and settled into one of the tower's strange dips. 

“We made it!”

Mimi hissed, sounding a bit less than impressed, as she leapt off Essentia's back. Her fur was damp with moisture; she puffed up, trying to dry herself, before giving up and flopping bonelessly onto Essentia's lap. 

Essentia laughed and ran a gloved hand through Mimi's fur. “Heh. Not my fault you won't let me get you a poké ball, you know?” Being Essentia added a slight mechanical overlay to her words, but Mimi had never seemed to notice or care.

Not that she blamed Mimi for not wanting one—the two of them had been a team for as long as she could remember. Best friends shouldn't _need_ gadgets to keep them together. All the same, though, it sure would be nice on days like this, when Essentia was out climbing and Mimi refused to be left behind.

Mimi opened one enormous eye to glare up at Essentia. She didn't need words to understand her meaning; it was something along the lines of _why climb when we could just fly?_

“Aw, come on! How lazy is that? Aren't you even up for a little morning exercise?”

Mimi glanced pointedly at the poké balls on her belt. 

“Pepin shouldn't have to do _everything_. Poor guy exhausted himself on our last case.”

Xerosic hadn't exactly seemed _pleased_ when she'd let him know his crobat's new name, but she figured he'd learn to live with it. (And if not, then surely that would be motivation to earn himself an early release.) 

“Mrr.” Pointed teeth caught the light as Mimi yawned. 

“Ugh, you _are_ lazy!” Essentia pushed one finger into her espurr's soft belly fur. “See, you're even getting chubby! Told you all that cream was no good for you.”

“Mrrow!” Used to be Mimi would start chewing on her fingers if Emma got to poking her too much, but that didn't work so well when she was Essentia—Mimi was more likely to break her teeth on the mesh than anything else. That didn't mean she was helpless, though; a watery purple glow formed around Mimi's eyes, and Emma felt a light psychic tug on the finger closest Mimi. 

She laughed, tried and failed to disguise it as a sigh, and obligingly started petting the fur under Mimi's chin. 

“Yeah,” she said. “I know the cream tastes good.” 

She knew she should probably cut down on how much she gave Mimi, but it was really nice to just be able to _give_ Mimi cream, to have something better to offer her than old bits of half-eaten food and the grease off takeout wrappers.

She looked out over the Lumiose skyline. The sun was just beginning to peek over the edges of the furthest buildings, bathing the city in deep red and warm gold. The tint of her visor lent a strange effect to the sunrise; the buildings all already seemed orange, and where the morning light touched them they almost seemed to glow from within. It was like nothing she'd seen _before_ —before she met Looker and Serena and Xerosic, before she became Essentia. 

As she studied the shapes of the buildings, a small pop-up sounded in the corner of her vision, offering information about the expected temperature, humidity, and wind conditions, as well as what she could expect in the way of Lumiose foot traffic today. She dismissed it with a quick thought; she'd read it, but later. Right now she just wanted to focus on this.

When Emma was little, she'd dreamed about being able to afford a tour of Prism Tower; she'd wanted so badly to be like the kids she saw stream into the building each fall on school trips and family vacations. 

And now… well, now she didn't even need to buy a ticket. Sometimes she still couldn't believe how much and how quickly her life had changed. 

(Sure, not all of it had been positive. The police still weren't too fond of Essentia and, as often as she'd imagined having parents, she'd never thought that might mean ending up with a father who lived a continent away and another who was doing jail time for crimes against humanity and pokémon alike. But it most of it was good, better than she could ever dreamed of, and even the parts that she didn't like were still more than worth it.)

Essentia took a deep breath, filling her lungs with filtered air that nevertheless still held smelled of Lumiose. 

“Hey,” she said, poking Mimi once more, “what do you say we grab a quick bite at Café Cyclone? I bet they've just finished baking some of those egg pastries.”

Mimi made an excited little noise before leaping up and hopping onto the back of Essentia's suit once more. Her dagger-like claws hooked into the mesh as she climbed upwards. After a few moments, she settled into the dip between Essentia's shoulder blades. A quick psychic tap let Essentia know she was ready.

“All right.” Essentia stood and stretched, taking one more look out across the Lumiose City skyline. 

Soon enough, she'd probably be in danger again—there were always lowlifes (or worse) hanging around the city, and with the way she was striking out against them she'd become a favorite target. But that was fine. She could take it.

“Let's go!” Essentia took three quick steps before launching off the side of Prism Tower. No one would have been able to see it under her visor, but the grin that stretched across her face was so wide it almost hurt.


End file.
